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When one thinks of war, the Battle for Stalingrad comes to mind first. This is because the fighting in Stalingrad was no-holds-bar, fierce and beastly. It was a clash between two very proud nations; Germany and Russia.

And we do not mention here the obvious historical significance of Stalingrad. What if the Germans has won in Stalingrad?

History would have been very different today then.

Russian soldier move in the ruins of Stalingrad

BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

By the end of August, [German] Army Group South (B) had finally reached the Volga to the north of Stalingrad. Another advance to the river south of the city followed. By 1 September 1942, the Soviets could only supply their forces in Stalingrad by perilous crossings of the Volga. A massive German air bombardment on 23 August had caused a firestorm in the city, killing thousands of civilians and turning the city into a vast landscape of rubble and burnt ruins. Eighty percent of the living space in the city was destroyed. The Soviet 62nd Army formed defense lines amid the debris, with strongpoints situated in houses and factories. One example of this destruction's source is that in the month of September alone the Germans expended 25,000,000 rounds of small arms fire in Stalingrad.

Tending to a wounded Soviet soldier

Fighting in the city was fierce and desperate. Stalin had authorized execution of his own troops if they retreated. "Not a step back!" was the slogan. During the battle, Soviet security forces arrested, executed or sent 13,000 of their own troops to penal battalions for "cowardice". As many as 300,000 were returned to their units or used to reman other units. The Germans meanwhile pushed forward at all costs, also suffering heavy casualties. Soviet reinforcements were shipped across the river Volga from the eastern bank, constantly attacked by German artillery and air raids. The life expectancy of a newly arrived Soviet soldier in the city dropped to a few hours. Bitter fighting raged for every street, every factory, every house, basement and staircase. The Germans, calling this unseen urban warfare Rattenkrieg ("rat-war"), bitterly joked about having captured the kitchen but still fighting for the living-room.

Russians look at the remains of the German soldiers

Fighting on Mamayev Kurgan, a prominent blood-soaked hill above the city, was particularly merciless. The height changed hands several times. At one of their counter-assaults to recapture it, the Soviets lost an entire division of 10,000 men in one day. Meanwhile, close combat inside the Grain Elevator, a huge silo where Soviet and German soldiers were so close that they could hear each other breathe, went on for weeks. In another part of the city, an apartment building defended by a Soviet platoon under the command of Yakov Pavlov was turned into an impenetrable fortress. The building, later called "Pavlov's House", oversaw a square in the city centre. The soldiers surrounded it with minefields, set up machine-gun positions at the windows, and breached the walls in the basement for better communications.

Fighting in the broken factories

With no end to the fighting in sight, the Germans started transferring increasingly heavy artillery to the city, eventually several gigantic 600mm mortars. Soviet artillery kept taking German positions under fire from the Eastern bank of the Volga. The Soviet defenders continued using the resulting ruins as defensive positions. Soviet snipers also successfully used the ruins to hide in. They inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans. (The highest scorer only identified as "Zikan", being credited with 224 kills by November 20, 1942, and Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev being credited with 149 kills during the battle). German tanks meanwhile became useless in heaps of rubble up to 8 m high. If they still were able to move forward, they were taken under Soviet anti-tank fire from the roof tops.

A German plane come to a sorry end

For both Stalin and for Hitler, the battle of Stalingrad became a question of life and death. Soviet command moved the Red Army's strategic reserves from the Moscow area to the lower Volga, and transferred all available aircraft from the entire country to Stalingrad. The strain on both military commanders was immense: Paulus developed an uncontrollable tic in his eye, while Chuikov experienced an outbreak of eczema that required him to bandage his hands completely.

People in Stalingrad struggle to survive. These women are helping in the war effort

In November, after three months of carnage and slow and costly advance, the Germans finally reached the river banks, capturing 90% of the ruined city and splitting the remaining Soviet forces into two narrow pockets. In addition, ice-floes on the Volga now prevented boats and tugs from supplying the Soviet defenders across the river. Nevertheless the fighting, especially on the slopes of Mamayev Kurgan and inside the factory area in the northern part of the city, continued as fiercely as ever. The battles for the Red October tractor factory and the Barrikady factory became world famous. While Soviet soldiers defended their positions and took the Germans under fire, factory workers repaired damaged Soviet tanks and other weapons in the direct vicinity of the battlefield, sometimes on the battlefield itself.

German troops gather near a destroyed Russian factory

German military doctrine was based on the principle of combined-arms teams and close cooperation between tanks, infantry, engineers, artillery, and ground-attack aircraft. To counter this, Soviet commanders adopted the tactic of always keeping the front lines as close to the Germans as physically possible; Chuikov called this "hugging" the Germans. This forced the German infantry to either fight on their own or risk taking casualties from their own supporting fire; it neutralized German close air support and weakened artillery support.

VIDEO: BATTLE FOR STALINGRAD: FOOTAGE: GERMAN DOCUMENTARY

This image is from before the German invasion. The Soviet Communist Party office in Stalingrad.

Bitter fighting raged for every ruin, street, factory, house, basement, and staircase. The sewers were the sites of labyrinthine firefights. The Germans, calling this unseen urban warfare Rattenkrieg ("Rat War"), bitterly joked about capturing the kitchen but still fighting for the living room. In such desperate chaos, all battle lines vanished, and the major, armor-supported mobility to which the German soldiers were accustomed degenerated into vicious, fast-paced skirmishes ranging through bombed-out debris of residential neighborhoods, office blocks, basements, and apartment high-rises. Some of the taller buildings, blasted into roofless shells by earlier German aerial bombardment, saw floor-by-floor, close-quarters combat, with the Germans on one level, Soviets on the next, Germans on the next, etc., firing at each other through holes in the floors.

The city of Stalingrad before the nightmare began

In another part of the city, a Soviet platoon under the command of Yakov Pavlov turned an apartment building that oversaw a square in the city center into an impenetrable fortress, later called "Pavlov's House". The soldiers surrounded it with minefields, set up machine-gun positions at the windows, and breached the walls in the basement for better communications. The soldiers found about ten Soviet civilians hiding in the basement. They were not relieved, and not significantly reinforced, for two months. Well after the battle, Chuikov liked to joke that more Germans died trying to capture Pavlov's House than died capturing Paris. According to Beevor, throughout the second month, after each wave of German assault against the building, the Soviets had to run out and kick down the piles of German corpses in order for the machine and anti-tank gunners in the building to have clear firing lines across the square. The building was labeled Festung ("Fortress") on German maps. Sgt. Pavlov was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union for his actions.

Russian propaganda poster. "Kill the German beast"

The Luftwaffe retained air superiority into early November and Soviet daytime aerial resistance was nonexistent, but after flying 20,000 individual sorties, its original strength of 1,600 serviceable aircraft had fallen to 950. The Kampfwaffe (bomber force) had been hardest hit, having only 232 out of a force of 480 left.Despite enjoying qualitative superiority against the VVS and possessing eighty percent of the Luftwaffe's resources on the Eastern Front, Luftflotte 4 could not prevent Soviet aerial power from growing. By the time of the counter-offensive, the Soviets outnumbered it.

VIDEO: GERMANS TRY TO KEEP SUPPLIES GOING THROUGH AIR

Russian poster. "That's enough, fascist beast"

The Sixth Army was the largest unit of this type in the world and almost twice as large as a regular German army unit, plus there was also a corps of the Fourth Panzer Army trapped in the pocket. It should have been clear that supplying them by air was impossible – the maximum 117.5 tons they could deliver a day—based on the number of available aircraft and with only the airfield at Pitomnik to land at—was far less than the minimum 800 tons needed. To supplement the limited number of Junkers Ju 52 transports, the Germans used aircraft wholly inadequate for the role, such as the He-177 bomber (some bombers performed adequately – the Heinkel He-111 proved to be quite capable and was much faster than the Ju 52). But Hitler backed Göring's plan and reiterated his order of "no surrender" to his trapped armies.

The air supply mission failed. Appalling weather conditions, technical failures, heavy Soviet anti-aircraft fire and fighter interceptions led to the loss of 488 German aircraft. The Luftwaffe failed to achieve even the daily supply of 117 tons that it had aircraft for. An average of 94 tons of supplies per day was delivered. The most successful day, 19 December, delivered only 289 tons of supplies in 154 flights. The supplies that did get through were often useless: one aircraft arrived with 20 tonnes of vodka and summer uniforms, another with supplies of black pepper and marjoram. Hitler's indecision on the purpose of Operation Winter Storm (either to allow a breakout or to open a corridor) meant that large quantities of fuel that would have helped with a breakout were shipped when food and ammunition would have been more useful.

"Death to the fascist monster"

The Sixth Army slowly starved. Pilots were shocked to find the troops too exhausted and hungry to unload. Germans fought over the slightest scraps of bread. General Zeitzler, moved by their plight, began to limit himself to their slim rations at meal times. After a few weeks on such a diet, he had lost 26 pounds and had become so emaciated that Hitler, annoyed, personally ordered him to start eating regular meals again.

The hardy Russians move

The Sixth Army now was beyond all hope of German reinforcement. The German troops in Stalingrad were not told this, however, and continued to believe that reinforcements were on their way. Some German officers requested that Paulus defy Hitler’s orders to stand fast and instead attempt to break out of the Stalingrad pocket. Paulus refused, as he abhorred the thought of disobeying orders. Also, while a motorised breakout might have been possible in the first few weeks, the Sixth Army now had insufficient fuel and the German soldiers would have faced great difficulty breaking through the Soviet lines on foot in harsh winter conditions.

The Germans inside the pocket retreated from the suburbs of Stalingrad to the city itself. The loss of the two airfields, at Pitomnik on 16 January 1943 and Gumrak on either 25 January or the night of 21/22 January, meant an end to air supplies and to the evacuation of the wounded. The third and last serviceable runway was at the Stalingradskaja flight school, which reportedly had the last landings and takeoffs on the night of 22–23 January. After daybreak on 23 January, there were no more reported landings except for continuous air drops of ammunition and food until the end.

The Germans were now not only starving, but running out of ammunition. Nevertheless, they continued to resist stubbornly, in part because they believed the Soviets would execute any who surrendered. In particular, the so-called "HiWis", Soviet citizens fighting for the Germans, had no illusions about their fate if captured.

A Russian sniper fells German soldiers

The Germans adopted a simple defense of fixing wire nets over all windows to protect themselves from grenades. The Soviets responded by fixing fish hooks to the grenades so they stuck to the nets when thrown. The Germans now had no usable tanks in the city. Those tanks which still functioned could at best be used as stationary cannons. The Soviets did not bother employing tanks in areas where the urban destruction restricted their mobility. A Soviet envoy made Paulus a generous offer on honourable terms: if he surrendered within 24 hours, he would receive a guarantee of safety for all prisoners, medical care for the sick and wounded, prisoners allowed to keep their personal belongings, "normal" food rations, and repatriation to whatever country they wished to go to after the war—but Paulus, ordered not to surrender by Adolf Hitler, did not respond, ensuring the destruction of the Sixth Army.

Poster. "Hitler"

On 30 January 1943, the 10th anniversary of his coming to power, Hitler promoted Paulus to Generalfeldmarschall. Since no German Field Marshal had ever been taken prisoner, Hitler assumed that Paulus would fight on or take his own life. However, when Soviet forces closed in on his headquarters in the ruined GUM department store the next day, Paulus surrendered. The remnants of the Axis forces in Stalingrad surrendered on 2 February; 91,000 tired, ill, and starving prisoners were taken, including 3,000 Romanians, the survivors of the 20th Infantry Division, 1st Cavalry Division and “Col. Voicu” Detachment. To the delight of the Soviet forces and the dismay of the Third Reich, the prisoners included 22 generals. Hitler was furious and confided that Paulus "could have freed himself from all sorrow and ascended into eternity and national immortality, but he prefers to go to Moscow."

One of the most horrific battles in history and perhaps the most crucial turning point of WWII, the battle for Stalingrad is examined in Sebastian Dehnhardt's exhaustive three-part, made-for-TV documentary originally simulcast on public television in Germany and Russia. Dehnhardt tells the story through stock footage, 8 mm footage shot by survivors of the battle, and contemporary videotaped interviews with several survivors, both German and Russian.

The first section, "The Attack," gives the context for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union and the confident German advance across the country to the Stalingrad and the Volga River. There, the Germans found bitter cold. They bombed the city mercilessly, but the Red Army imbedded itself and cunningly used snipers to keep the Germans off balance.

The second section is "The Kessel." "Kessel" is the German word for "cauldron," which is how the German soldiers referred to the area in which they ended up trapped when the Russians cut off their supply lines and surrounded them after they had marched into the city. The Germans had overextended their military in Hitler's haste to conquer all of the Soviet Union. Here, they fought the Russians for several grueling months through sub-zero temperatures, dealing with disease and hunger. His commanders forbidden to surrender, Hitler was determined to conquer the city that bore his enemy's name.

The third section, "The Doom," deals with the Germans' growing desperation to get out, as they resort to cannibalism to survive. They eventually surrendered and the last part of the film details the grueling march to prisoner-of-war camps. Nearly one million died during the campaign.

Stalingrad was shown at the 2003 New York Film Festival.------------------------

Illustrated History

Our History Sites

A nice introduction to the SS. The SS (Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler) was a number of things--Hitler's body guard, law enforcement duties, concentration camp controllers, and soldiers (the Waffen-SS). This volume examines the work of the SS from 1939-1945. Early on, there was competition between the SA and the SS (to be devoted to Hitler, whereas the SA had other ambitions). With the demise of the SA, the SS became that much more important.

The SS had two elements--the Waffen-SS, the military arm, and the Allgemeine-SS, a police and security force with tentacles throughout German society. The second chapter lays out the variety of responsibilities of the Allgemeine-SS nicely. In addition to describing the "tentacles," this discussion also considers recruitment and training, symbolism (the death's head--totenkopf), uniforms, flags, and so on.

Then, the Waffen-SS. Appearance, equipment, training, weapons, tactics, and famous commanders, such as Sepp Dietrich. Some of the more legendary divisions in the Waffen-SS: Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, and Totenkopf. Other formations emerged, too, such as Wiking, a division made up of volunteers from Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, etc. The racial exclusivity of the Waffen-SS began to be compromised as needs for soldiers became more pressing as the war continued.

The book discusses the fighting power of the Waffen-SS—and its slow disintegration as it was bled to death in the Soviet Union and in France after the Normandy invasion. There were a few last hurrahs, such as in the Battle of the Bulge, but this element was slowly ground down due to causalities and inferior replacements.

Chris McNab's wonderfully-illustrated HITLER'S ARMIES, A HISTORY OF THE GERMAN WAR MACHINE 1939-45 traces the development and combat ops of the German Army including the Waffen-SS and Fallschirmjager. Strikingly illustrated with hundreds of color and b&w photographs, color maps and diagrams, combat artwork and color plates of weapons and uniforms, it's an appealing, comprehensive history of the men and units that made Blitzkrieg a household word.

A Lousy Journalist?

History Quotes

May 1945 - If hell on earth existed, than it existed in Prague after May the 5th. 1945. Old men, women and children were beaten to death and maimed. Rapes, barbaric cruelties, horror-scenarios of hellish proportions - here they had been let lose.

- Ludek Pachmann, Czech Chess-Grand Master and publicist, forty years after the fact.

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Quotes

"History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are."-- DAVID C. MCCULLOUGH

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.-- MARY ANGELOU

Quotes

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.-- GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Quotes

"I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past."--EDWARD GIBBON

"Patriotism ruins history."-- GOETHE

Snippets from History

This short but important battle played a key role in the decision to use atomic bombs when attacking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The battle showed just how far Japanese troops would go to defend their country.

Snippets From History

Paulus didn't give the order to 6th Army to surrender, but his troops no longer had much fight left in them. Resistance faded out over the next two days, with the last die-hards finally calling it quits. One Red Army colonel shouted at a group of prisoners, waving at the ruins all around them:"That's how Berlin is going to look!"

Quotes

History is Philosophy teaching by examples.-- THUCYDIDES

Quotes

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."-- George Santayana

Points to Ponder: Why Is China Unstable?

The aim of individuals in any society is money and power. Societies that give equal chance to all its members to get them will be the most stable. That is why democracies are more stable than other systems of governance.

China after Deng's reform gave the chance to get rich but power is in the hands of an elite; the Communist Party of China. Membership to the party is at the whims of the local party bosses. This leaves out many people who crave political power dissatisfied and disgruntled. There in lies the roots of instability. The Party suppressed these demands once at Tiananmen in 1989. But force is hardly the way to deal with things like these.

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Stalingrad Documentary

Why This Interst For Waffen SS Even Today?

World War Two ended many many years ago. All the Nazi creations were destroyed. But even today there is a continuous, even a growing interest in the Waffen SS. Why?

OK, Hitler was a bad guy. He dragged the world into a destruction never seen before . Agreed, the SS leadership was evil. The millions of fighters of the Waffen SS were embued with the Nazi ideals.

But certain ideals were drilled into them which made them one of the toughest soldiers the world will ever see. A camaraderie, a fierce devotion to Germany. With a complete disregard for one's life. A purity which is rarely seen in today's world.

Mass Rape Of German Women In 1945....

One young officer coming upon a unit that had overtaken a column of German refugees fleeing westward later recalled: ‘Women, mothers and their children lie to the right and left along the route, and in front of each of them stands a raucous armada of men with their trousers down. The women who are bleeding or losing consciousness get shoved to one side, and our men shoot the ones who try to save their children.’ A group of ‘grinning’ officers was standing near by, making sure ‘that every soldier without exception would take part’.READ MORE >>>>

The End Of Nazi Germany

Zhukov stood up. 'We invite the German delegation to sign the act of capitulation,' he said in Russian. The interpreter translated, but Keitel, by an impatient gesture, signalled that he had understood and that they should bring him the papers.

Zhukov, however, pointed to the end of his table. 'Tell them to come here to sign,' he said to the interpreter. Keitel stood up and walked over. He ostentatiously removed his glove before picking upthe pen. He clearly had no idea that the senior Soviet officer looking over his shoulder ashe signed was Beria's representative, General Serov. Keitel put the glove back on, then returned to his place. Stumpff signed next, then Friedeburg.

'The German delegation may leave the hall,' Zhukov announced. The three men stood up.Keitel, 'his jowls hanging heavily like a bulldog's', raised his marshal's baton in salute,then turned on his heel.

As the door closed behind them, it was almost as if everybody inthe room exhaled in unison. The tension relaxed instantaneously. Zhukov was smiling, sowas Tedder. Everybody began to talk animatedly and shake hands. Soviet officers embraced each other in bear hugs. The party which followed went on until almost dawn,with songs and dances. Marshal Zhukov himself danced the Russkayato loud cheers fromhis generals. From inside, they could clearly hear gunfire all over the city as officers and soldiers blasted their remaining ammunition into the night sky in celebration. The war was over.

The War In Russia....

The German divisions advanced across immense fields of sun-flowers or corn. One of the main dangers they faced was from Red Army soldiers, cut off by the rapid advance, attacking from behind or from the flank. On many occasions, when German soldiers fired back, the Red Army soldiers fell, feigning death, and lay there without moving. When the Germans approached to investigate, the Soviet soldiers waited until almost the last moment, then 'shot them at close range'

Trivia: RudolfHoess

"I must admit that this gassing had a calming effect on me, I was always horrified of executions by firing squads. Now, I was relieved to think that we would be spared all these bloodbaths."Rudolf Hoess..

Rudolf Hoess was responsible for the death of over one million people in his concentration camp. He was caught in March 1946, gave evidence at Nuremberg and was then handed over to Poland for trial. While awaiting trial he wrote his memoirs. He was executed at Auschwitz, the very site he commanded, and allowed others to die in.

History Trivia: Heydrich

Reinhard Heydrich..

Hitler referred to Reinhard Heydrich as "the Man with the Iron Heart" at his funeral. Until his death Heydrich oversaw the 'Final Solution' ... He was assassinated by two Czech resistance members in Prague in 1942. Hitler was so angered by the assassination that the village of Lidice was completely destroyed, and the inhabitants murdered.

Snippets Of History

STALIN 'WAKES' UP

For the first time, the Russian people heard the voice of their leader. Stalin addressed the entire country on July 3, 1941. He welcomed aid from the West and proclaimed a scorched-earth policy, denying the Germans everything and calling for the Russians already under occupation to fight hard against the invaders. He also appealed not only to communist ideals but to Russian nationalism.

Snippets From History

In World War II and almost every other war in United States military history, our military was very clearly threatened by a uniformed and rather easily recognizable enemy. However in Vietnam, it was quite opposite. It appeared to the American soldiers that the whole country was hostile to American forces. It was impossible to tell the difference between friendly Vietnamese and enemy Vietnamese, (Viet Cong). The Viet Cong was rarely uniformed; therefore American troops were often forced to kill women and children.

Snippets From History

The Polish-Jewish historian and the Warsaw Ghetto archivist Emanuel Ringelblum has described the cruelty of the ghetto police as "at times greater than that of the Germans, the Ukrainians and the Latvians."

Snippets From History: Vietnam War

From a journalist’s perspective, especially a photo-journalist, the war in Vietnam was unique. With virtually unrestricted access to the battle fields many photographers came to depict war in a way never seen before or since. Despite the technology, this was a guerrilla war with much of the fighting at close quarters, allowing intense moments to be recorded on film.

This meant risk; over 135 photographers from all sides are recorded as dead or missing. But it was also a war where images changed public opinion.

Snippets From History

"In 1945, in Soviet eyes it was time to pay," wrote British military historian Max Arthur. "For most Russian soldiers, any instinct for pity or mercy had died somewhere on a hundred battlefields between Moscow and Warsaw."

Snippets of War

BATTLE FOR STALINGRADThe Germans were now not only starving, but running out of ammunition. Nevertheless, they continued to resist stubbornly, in part because they believed the Soviets would execute any who surrendered. In particular, the so-called "HiWis", Soviet citizens fighting for the Germans, had no illusions about their fate if captured.

Snippets From History

The Hitler youth fought with great courage during the battle. One group of Hitler youth even managed to hold off a Soviet tank division for three days. Many soldiers said that no one scared them more then the Hitler youth.....